Pick a Daughter, Any Daughter
by Dimension Kayt
Summary: SM-Tokyo Mew Mew -- Determined to find the perfect clone-like daughters, Minto and Zakuro wait for their turn while Haruka and Michiru hold auditions for the roles. However, there's that pesky Magical Girl Guidebook to follow...
1. The First Auditions

"I don't know, Haruka. They fit most of the requirements, but neither have any musical talent. And look— I think Lily's hair is only _dyed_ green." Michiru Kaiou sat in a theatre chair, frowning at two girls onstage in front of her. Beside her, Haruka Tenou nodded her agreement, so Michiru motioned for the girls to leave. "Next."

As the girls headed backstage sulking, the doors in the back of the theatre flew open and a blue-haired woman rushed in. Her hair was tied up in two buns, though a few stray hairs poke out stubbornly. Minto Aizawa looked at the two already-seated women, and stamped her foot. "I knew it! We're _late_!"

"Minto, calm down," Zakuro Fujiwara, elegant in purple, followed behind. "They've hardly begun." Minto pouted, but kept silent as a new pair of girls walked onstage.

"Hello, my name is Namiko, and this is my sister, Katsuoko," one of the girls introduced herself. She was a small girl, with dark blue hair (_natural_ dark blue hair, Michiru noted) that fell in waves down to her waist. Though she wore pants, she had an air of elegance that made it easy to envision her in a formal dress. In her hand, Michiru was interested to see, Namiko carried a flute.

"Can you play?" Michiru asked, pointing to the silver instrument. Namiko nodded, and lifted it to her lips. She began playing a tune that remarkably like _Heart Moving_.

Michiru smiled and mentally check off the required traits that this girl required. _Green or blue hair, check. Elegant and ladylike, check. Musical talent, check. And as a bonus, her name means Wave Child!_ Michiru was impressed. No girl so far had possessed so many of the qualities she was looking for.

Beside her, Haruka was studying Katsuoko. _Small, but obviously plays sports, _she noted, observing the many grass stains in the girl's clothing. _She has brown hair—we can bleach that if we have to— but doesn't seem to be quite comfortable in spotlight situations._ "Do you run?" she asked suddenly, interrupting the flute concert.

Katsuoko nodded vigorously. "All the time. And I rollerblade and ride my bike. I like going _fast_," she grinned, and tugged on her boyishly short hair. "Cut off my hair so that I don't have to comb out tangles."

Haruka was satisfied. "She fills all _my_ requirements," she whispered to Michiru.

Michiru glanced over at Katsuoko and shrugged. Whispering back, she said, "Namiko seems to fulfill all my hopes as well." After receiving a nod from Haruka, she smiled at the twins. "Thank you, we'll consider you." As they left, Michiru turned to face Minto, sitting on her left. "What do you think?"

Minto considered what she had seen. "Well, her flute playing seemed to be superb. She also seems to be completely comfortable in the spotlight, something you want in a girl who is going to be living in a palace. Her hair isn't green, though, and it's too long. If she's going to be your daughter, her hair should be no longer than mid-back."

"It could be cut," Haruka broke in. "And blue isn't too different from your green, Michiru." Now having caught the attention of all three women, Haruka shrugged. "_I _liked them. Katsuoko was the first one today who admitted to liking any physical activity."

Minto's eyes widened as she mentally dissected Haruka's statement. "The first one _today_?" she shifted her accusing gaze to her left, where Zakuro was dutifully inspecting her shoes. "You said we weren't late, Zakuro."

Zakuro's interest in the floor deepened. "Well, _our_ girls haven't arrived yet. We didn't need to get here much earlier." In a less elegant lady, Zakuro's expression may have been described as sheepish.

Now totally forgotten, the women from the world of Sailor Moon traded looks. "Why don't you two go talk outside, while we finish with our auditions?" Michiru suggested. Haruka decided to avoid tact altogether and pulled both Tokyo Mew Mew women from their seats, then herded them to the door.

As the door closed, the Senshi could still hear the fading argument. "You _lied_ to me, Zakuro."

Haruka and Michiru turned their attention back to the stage. Displaying the type of timing always found in fanfics, the next princess-wannabes had arrived on the stage just as Minto and Zakuro had left.

Michiru took one look, and then shook her head. "We can't have _triplets_," she shot a horrified look at Haruka. "It would totally throw off the Official Balance of the Children of Magical Girls! One daughter per magical girl, that's it!"

Haruka nodded sagely, then raised her voice so the girls onstage could hear. "I'm sorry, _next_!"

The rest of the auditions only took half an hour. No other girls fit the requirements well enough to be considered. After the last pair, two cousins who both had green hair and played trombones, Michiru let out a sigh. "Thank goodness that's _over_. I don't think I could sit through another rendition of _Moonlight Legend_," she paused. "Did I know it was even _possible_ to burp that song?"

Haruka grimaced. "Better than the girl who _farted_ the whole thing." She shuddered and changed the subject. "So, who should we go with? I liked that American pair—Carla and Victoria."

Michiru stared at her partner in horror. "_Them_? Are you mad? Carla had red hair - and Victoria purple! Even though they had personalities almost exactly like ours, they didn't even look _remotely_ similar! And Victoria - she wore glasses! How could we adopt a pair of girls who look totally unrelated to us? What if, when they suddenly get magical Senshi powers that really have nothing to do with their pasts or real family, their uniforms don't have any of our colors? It clearly states in the Official Sailor Senshi Handbook that all of our offspring - excluding Chibi-Usa - must look incredibly similar to their mothers (even adopted mothers) and bear absolutely no resemblance to their fathers! Carla and Victoria look nothing like us! We could get _sued_!" Michiru had reached the point of hysteria.

Haruka was properly abashed. In her eagerness to adopt those two perfectly clone-like girls, she had forgotten the most important rule: all adopted children must not only act and get powers and outfits similar to their magical girl mothers; they must first and foremost _look_ like their mothers. How could she have forgotten that?


	2. The Final Auditions

A confession: When I originally wrote this story two years ago, I had no clue how it was going to end. That is a very bad way to write, at least for me, and I appologize that it has taken me so long to finish it.

Of course, on the other hand it was lovely to write a silly story where I didn't have to worry about how everything fit in with canon. A purely silly story, this is, but I had a blast.

* * *

Having made up in a way that is better left to the imagination, Minto and Zakuro reentered the theatre to see an empty stage. "Are there any more girls?" Minto asked as she made her way down the carpeted aisle.

Both Senshi shook their heads. "No—and after some consideration, we've decided to go with Namiko and Katsuoko, the two you did get to see," Michiru explained.

Minto shot an annoyed glace at Zakuro when she heard the news. "We missed all the other girls!"

Zakuro shook her head and smiled. "You would have preferred staying in here to look at their girls rather than be with me?" She gently brushed a stray blue hair out of Minto's face as the other woman blushed and looked away.

Haruka cleared her throat and the Mews both twitched a bit as they realized they had an audience, albeit one that should have been sympathetic. Haruka rolled her eyes but a small smile appeared on her mouth. "We'll go check to see if all your girls are here," she said as she took Michiru's arm and escorted her backstage.

As they sat down, Minto and Zakuro managed to tear their eyes away from each other long enough to study the theatre they were in. The floors were carpeted in the same color red that also made up the plush seats and velvet curtains that were currently drawn back with thick gold ropes. It was a small theatre, but one obviously used for important matters—the adoption auditions for four of Earth's magical defenders, for instance. Their girls would cross the stage with the house lights trained on them, but would easily see past the lights to the dark-haired women sitting in the first row.

Zakuro heard the nervous chatter of voices backstage first, but it was Minto who spoke first. "We know what we're looking for, correct?"

"Yes," the other woman agreed quietly, "but be thinking about the type of DNA you want them to have so that their colors will match," she absently pushed a strand of purple hair behind her ear as she spoke. Despite the fact that she would, most likely, totally disappear by the time her adopted daughter was turned into a Mew, they still had to follow guidelines. Out of the endangered wolf species she had looked over, she had picked the Ethiopian Wolf, with the Maned Wolf as backup just in case, so that its red color would stand out against the purple color scheme (or at least, _cool _color scheme if she felt daring and found a girl with blue as her color) that the second-generation Mew would inevitably have.

"Mmmm…" Minto hummed, pursing her lips as she thought. She had planned on a small bird, just like her own Blue Lorikeet, but the more she thought about it… "A butterfly!" she exclaimed, causing Zakuro to start in surprise before she regained her composure once again. "It'll be totally unexpected!"

"We won't get in _trouble_ for that, will we?" Zakuro frowned worriedly. Just as the Sailor Senshi had the Official Sailor Senshi Handbook, the Mews had the Tokyo Mew Mew Guidebook. It was freer than its Sailor Senshi counterpart in the sense that it allowed for DNA substitutions (Zakuro was free to pick any canine animal), unrelated girls to be adopted (so the two women didn't have to audition all the girls as pairs of sisters) and a very few, small uniform changes (generally regarding the addition of uniform straps and the length of boots), but Minto seemed to be venturing into dangerous territory with her most recent decision.

Minto's bright blue eyes sparkled. "What for? She'll fly, and there's bound to be some sort of blue butterfly out there _somewhere_. She'll be such a change from the normal second-generation girls! And oh, I can't wait to see the look on Ichigo's face when she realizes that _her_ daughter is going to be stuck being a boring old _catgirl _while mine is a _butterfly_!"

As she was speaking, a pair of girls came out on stage, so Zakuro pushed her doubts into the back of her mind temporarily. They were obviously sisters, judging from the fact that they both had the same blueberry hair and brown eyes. Minto and Zakuro settled down in their seats as the interview began, barely noticing that Haruka and Michiru had not yet reappeared.

The applicants for the Tokyo Mew Mew positions were noticeably more similar to each other than the girls for the Sailor Moon women. Their main attention-grabbing features—eyes, hair color, sometimes the clothes they wore—all came in shades of purple and blue (and occasionally brown or gray for eye color, although that wasn't as important so they were fine) with the exception of one, a perky girl named Nashi. Her hair was a brilliantly startling shade of emerald that, when combined with her bubbly, outgoing personality and preference for fizzy soft drinks over tea, eliminated her soon after she came onstage.

At the end, the two Mews decided on two girls unrelated to each other but who seemed to get along well enough anyway. Minto's pick was Aoberii, who had shoulder-length sapphire hair that she left down except for two small buns on either side of her head. Those were tied with yellow ribbons that matched her golden-brown eyes and the kimono she wore to the audition. She was elegant—obviously, she had to have some Zakuro-like qualities, too— and could perform a Japanese tea ceremony to perfection. She had a rich vocabulary and showed a mastery of sarcasm to equal Minto's.

Zakuro surprised both Minto and the Sailor Senshi, who had eventually returned, when she picked Chimaki as her heir. Chimaki had very pale purple hair that, contrary to the norm, was cut in a very short, cropped style. It worried Zakuro a bit that Chimaki, who had dark brown eyes but pale skin, looked almost washed-out next to her soon-to-be sister Aoberii, but with her eye for style Zakuro noted that in the right clothing (namely _darker_ clothing, such as deep purple accented with pastel colors), Chimaki looked fine and could be a model rivaling her adoptive mother.

When their choices had been announced, all the other wannabe-superheroes went home or evaporated and the four women, two Mews and two Senshi, sent their new daughters off to the Office of Magical Girl Affairs to be placed in a plotline that allowed them to skip ahead to the point where they received their newfound, totally surprising, and not-at-all-expected powers. Once that was done, the four women all gave a sigh of relief, happy to get _that_ over with and eager to retreat to their currently-childless lives.

Minto looked up at Zakuro, then at the Senshi. "Tea?" she asked. They were standing on a residential street under neatly manicured trees, surrounded by the high walls that separated them from the wealthy homes of the area.

Michiru and Haruka looked at each other, then back at Minto. "No, thank you," Michiru replied. "We really do need to get home." _Really,_ really_ need to get home,_ she thought as she squeezed Haruka's hand.

"Then I hope everything goes well for you," Zakuro bowed, then turned to walk away, eager to be away from the other women and alone with Minto. They walked in silence for a few minutes before Zakuro spoke again. "That went well, I think."

"Mmm hmmm," Minto nodded absently. She paused outside a wrought iron gate, fingers twined in the loops and curls or the design. "Do you think we'll have anyone to deal with between now and, say, the time Chimaki and Aoberii take our places?"

Zakuro opened the gate before she replied. "I doubt it, since these things come and go once in a generation."

"Then…" Minto took a few steps and looked at the large mansion before them, then back at Zakuro, who was now very firmly shutting the gate behind them. "Would _you_ like some tea?"

The purple-haired woman looked up with an expression of mild interest that couldn't entirely hide the mischievousness in her eyes. "_Just_ tea?"

"Maybe."


End file.
